Tuesday, a day that brought a promise of spring, also brought Myshkin's Ruby Warblers to alight on the stage at Iota for a set that was both lyrical and politically pointed.
Fortunately, singer-guitarist Myshkin and her performing partner, bassist Sailor, emphasized the former over the latter. Myshkin, who has lived all over the country but now makes her home in Oregon, remarked that she was currently on "the wrong coast" and sang songs slamming industrialists, segregationists, meat purveyors and warmongers. But although she shares with Michelle Shocked an affinity for traditional acoustic music, she's blessedly free of the rhetorical excesses that weaken Shocked's performances. The self-described "gypsy torch punk chanteuse" is all about the sound: a rich blend topped with her broad-ranging, keening voice.
It was hard to escape the bird imagery in this vernal performance, from "Ruby Warbler," which featured an arresting, fluttering guitar figure, to "Bluebird," which asked, "Do you feel absurd / Calling out, calling out / To your false dawn?" Myshkin also offered several songs from the new Ruby Warblers album. Most notable was "Gypsytown," which she wrote after watching two old women drink a young man under the table in a Northern England pub: "Few are as rough as a Gypsytowner in her cups."
Opener Ana Egge matched Myshkin for vocal assurance and engaging imagery, albeit with a more conventional American singer-songwriter style. Her song co-written with Shawn Colvin, "The Flood," portrayed the imaginative power of children, and her captivating version of Steve James's "Talco Girl" presented a small-town refugee who might well have met some of Myshkin's protagonists along the great road.
-- Pamela Murray Winters
